Living Dangerously (14 page)

“I need to be at Ari’s at seven-thirty. He’s got an eight o’clock meeting.”

“With who?” she asked. Maybe it was one of the investors Ari had told her about. The quicker he got the funding, the quicker he’d decide on casting. But she didn’t want to think about Ari now, when Troy was seconds from walking out the door. “Forget it. I don’t care. I don’t want to talk about Ari. I want to talk about you. I had a great time last night.” She put her hand on his shoulder, rubbed a gentle thumb under his ear. He tipped his head into the caress. They acted like long-time lovers and the sentiment made Julie’s eyes sting.

“So did I,” he said, with a slight nod. “A really great time.”

Enough
to
want
to
do
it
again
? But she didn’t ask. The question stayed buried because of too many fears to count. What if this really had been a one-night thing for him? What if he didn’t feel anything more for her than lust?

He leaned in again and kissed her. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

How soon was soon? A few hours? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? The choices killed her. “Okay.” She smiled as he eased away from a last kiss. Almost as if he really didn’t want to go as much as she didn’t want to let him go.

But he walked out of her bedroom without a backward glance and whether she wanted it to or not, Julie’s heart went with him.

* * *

Later that morning, before she hit the road for Arizona, her mom dropped off some contracts for an indie film Julie had decided to do. Her agent had sent her an amazing script that had all the ingredients of a sleeper hit. The writer/director was young and new, and the lead role screamed Oscar nominee. Julie had more than enough money to last her several lifetimes, so she’d told her team to look for challenging parts, not necessarily the money ones. They still expected her to do a major film every year or two because they all wanted their cut. She understood how the business worked. She was a commodity and people counted on her for their living, but that didn’t mean she had to sacrifice her whole soul. She’d worked hard to reach this point in her career and no one told her how to live her life. Sure, she was America’s Sweetheart, but she’d learned when it came to business to speak her mind and stand her ground. Too bad she didn’t have the same ability when it came to her love life.

“I looked over the contract,” Elena said, handing over the large manila envelope as they stood at the front door. “It looks good to me.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Julie debated telling her about Troy but decided not to get her mother’s hopes up. “I know you’re tight on time. I just told Steve I’d drop it off ASAP. I should’ve gotten it from you days ago. He is one laid-back associate producer. I feel bad for making him wait.”

Her mom waved her off. “I told him he’d have it by the end of the week, sweetie. Nothing to worry about. And I’m not in that big a hurry to go.”

“Give Uncle Brian my love. Tell him happy birthday from me.” It would be a nice birthday gift if his cancer stayed in remission.

“You know I will.” Elena hugged her and checked her watch. “I’d better hit the road. I still need to get gas.” She opened the front door. “The AC is sputtering out on my car so I think I can count on a fairly miserable drive.”

“What? Are you nuts? You can’t drive to Arizona without AC. You’ll bake. You could
fly
there. There’s a good chance your plane won’t crash.” Her mother avoided planes whenever possible. “It didn’t when you flew the last time.”

Elena shuddered. “I got lucky. Besides, you know me, I like to cruise with the stereo blasting.”

“Then you should take my car,” Julie said as they walked outside. “This is the perfect time to see what you’re missing.” She’d been trying to persuade her mother for years to get rid of the gas-guzzling old-model Mercedes for something more fuel-efficient.

“I couldn’t take your car all the way to Arizona.” But Elena stopped and tipped her head to the side. “Could I?”

This was the first inclination Julie ever had that her mother might even consider driving something other than her Benz and she pounced on the indecision.

“Of course you can! C’mon, it’s loaded to the gills. I’ve got Sirius radio, GPS, Bluetooth. Hell, the car practically brushes my teeth if I ask it to. You’ll love it, Mom. Please, take my car and I’ll use your Benz. It’ll cost you half the amount to fill up and it’ll take you twice as far.” Julie wasn’t sure about that fact, but it sounded good and she really wanted her mother out of that old car. Despite making great money working as Julie’s manager, Elena still saw no reason to trade something in if it worked right. Maybe now that the AC was on the fritz, she’d consider an upgrade.

“It would be nice not to worry about filling up that often,” Elena hedged. “Not to mention having air conditioning.” She twisted her lips in that way the Fraser women did when deciding something. “You sure you wouldn’t mind? I hate that I’d be taking your car. I’ll be gone for almost a week.”

“What do I care? I’m not going anywhere. I’m just reading scripts this week, working out... You know, the usual drill in between films. You should take it and see if you’re ready to get your own. Twenty bucks says you fall in love and buy a hybrid the second you get back.”

Elena lifted an eyebrow—another Fraser trait that had rubbed off on Julie—and looked skeptical. “You’re on.” She stuck out her hand and they shook on the bet.

Together they moved Elena’s luggage into the Prius, which was still in the garage. She’d been in the car enough times to know how it worked, and Julie watched her excitement build as the idea grew on her.

Julie went inside and got her keys as Elena tossed her purse in the passenger seat through the open driver’s window. They swapped keys and Elena got behind the wheel for the first time. Her blue eyes sparkled with excitement as she closed the door. “This is kind of fun,” Elena admitted as she pressed the power button and put the car into gear.

Julie let her pull out and followed her. She walked to the garden hose because the gardener had failed to coil it behind the bush to keep it out of sight.

“Wait, Julie! I almost forgot.” Her mom jumped out of the car and hurried over with something in her hand. “These are for you. The candy you bought from Margaret’s granddaughter came in.” Elena’s cleaning lady Margaret seemed too young to have a granddaughter, but Julie loved the perks of buying candy and Girl Scout cookies. “I had these in my purse from yesterday.”

Julie took her “World’s Finest” chocolate bars and grinned. “Glad you remembered. I would’ve been pissed if these had gone to Arizona and I’d had to wait for them.”

“Trust me. If they’d been in my purse for the trip, you’d never have seen them at all.” Elena laughed and hugged her. “Bye, love. See you next week.”

“Bye, Mom. Drive safe.”

Elena turned and moved toward the car, still powered in the driveway. She got halfway there, when it exploded into a huge ball of fire.

Chapter Twelve

Flames rocketed into the air as the boom shattered the quiet day. The force and heat threw Julie back about eight feet. Dazed, she opened her eyes. She’d landed on the lawn near the front flowerbed. Debris covered the yard. Little patches of flaming embers dotted the grass. The for-sale sign had snapped in two and the top half had landed in the street. Her mother lay in front of her on the lawn, unmoving.

“Mom!” she called. She forced herself up. Her leg burned as she ran, but she didn’t care. “Mom!” she screamed again as a wave of panic and despair made her tremble. She knelt by her mother. Scratches covered her face and arms and blood seeped from a wound on her head. “Mom,” she said more quietly this time. Tears flowed freely as she struggled to get her phone from her back pocket. Her fingers shook so bad she could barely press 9-1-1.

“I n-need an ambulance. There was an e-explosion,” she stammered as soon as a man answered. Her voice shook. All of her shook. She rattled off her address. “My mother is hurt. Please hurry. Oh God, you have to hurry.”

“Help is on the way. Are you hurt, ma’am? Do you need help as well?”

She shook her head and realized he couldn’t see her. “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” she said. “I need to do something, call someone...” Who? Who should she call?

The dispatcher said something, but she wasn’t paying any attention.

A face popped into her head. Troy. Troy would help her. He’d know what to do. He’d been there for her when she’d needed him most.

“I have to go, I need the phone,” Julie said.

“Ma’am, don’t hang up!”

But Julie disconnected the call and fumbled once again with her phone. She had Troy’s number in her call log.

He answered on the second ring. “Hey there, I—”

“Troy!” She all but sobbed his name, her panic and fear as evident as the burning car in front of her.

“Julie, where are you? What’s wrong?” His upbeat tone disappeared and the serious voice she knew too well demanded answers.

She took a breath, but every muscle shook. “At home. I’m at home. My car... I need help!” She held back another sob as she stared at her mother. She needed to help her mother, and Troy couldn’t do it from wherever he was. Where was her brain? “I have to go. My mother... I have to go.” She dropped the phone and bolted into the house. She grabbed some towels from the front bathroom and ran back outside.

“Mom, please don’t die. Please, please don’t die.” Julie rocked back and forth and her phone rang from the grass. Troy’s name flashed on the screen. She picked it up, punched the screen.

“Don’t hang up on me. Goddammit. Are you hurt?” he asked.

“No.” But even as she said it, she noticed the scrapes and cuts along her arms and they made her look more closely at the burning in her leg. Her jeans were wet, dark on her thigh. Something had cut her. “Yes. A little, but I’m okay. My mom is hurt. She’s bleeding.” Sirens wailed in the distance, still at the bottom of the canyon. “She’s unconscious.” A fresh surge of panic rose in her chest. “I can’t... I don’t know what to do. I hear the ambulance, but it’s not here yet. I don’t know what to do,” she cried.

“Put pressure on her wound, Julie.” He sounded calm and in control. She would’ve paid money to be calm and in control.

“I’m doing that.” She continued to rock back and forth. A helicopter came into view overhead and circled. The car continued to burn and the black noxious fumes billowing high made her sick to her stomach. The longer she sat there the more her leg hurt.

“Stay on the line with me. Don’t hang up.”

Julie shook her head. “She was going to take my car to Arizona. It just blew up. She was walking back to get inside and it just...” She took a ragged breath. “She can’t die. She can’t die.”

“Keep pressure on her wound. She’s breathing, right? She’s going to be okay, sweetheart. I’m on my way.”

The wailing sirens got louder and a couple of minutes—that felt like forever—later, two fire trucks and paramedics pulled to a stop in front of her house.

“They’re here. Help is here. I have to go.” She disconnected before he said anything, not that she’d have heard him anyway between the sirens and the helicopter overhead. Hot tears scalded her cheeks as men rushed in to help. Firefighters leaped out of the truck and pulled off hoses from the back.

“The car just exploded,” Julie said as a firefighter eased her away from her mom and paramedics went to work. She took a step and her leg gave way. The man caught her and helped her to the ground.

“Need some help over here,” he called to one of the paramedics. A tall muscular blond with dark eyes rushed over and quickly sliced off Julie’s jeans at midthigh. A deep gash bled down her leg onto the grass.

The paramedic looked up and did a double take. “Hey, you’re Julie Fraser. I loved you in
Dangerous
Race
. Great movie.”

Julie nodded and shifted, trying to see what the paramedics were doing to her mother. Firefighters doused her car with foam. An ambulance pulled up and two EMTs quickly wheeled out a gurney. “I’m going with her,” she said. She didn’t care if she sounded like a bitch, but she didn’t plan to let her mother out of her sight until she had to.

The house. She needed to lock up the house. Close the garage door. Julie took a closer look. The frame of her garage had warped from the heat of the fire. Her garage door wouldn’t close. She could lock the inside door, but everything in her garage was fair game to anyone walking by.

She didn’t give a shit.

With support from the firefighter, she got what she needed and locked up the house. By the time she came out, her front yard swarmed with uniformed men, police and firefighters alike. Minutes later, she sat in the front seat of the ambulance headed to the Cedars Sinai emergency room.

They made her sit in a wheelchair and rolled her into the E.R. as they pushed her mother’s gurney into a treatment room. Photographers came out of nowhere and bulbs flashed in her face, leaving spots in front of her eyes. Dried blood had caked along her leg and she looked like an extra in a zombie movie. She could only imagine her face had similar cuts to her mother’s.

Agonizing minutes passed as she waited for a doctor in a treatment room. One of the paramedics from the scene stopped in to say her mother was stable, but after a few minutes, his partner grabbed him to respond to a nearby accident. The longer she waited, the more she started trembling again. Every muscle shook out of control.

The fact that someone wanted to kill her so desperately didn’t make sense. Who had she pissed off so badly that they resorted to shooting at her and making car bombs? Her eyes stung and a knot lodged in her throat. She wanted her mother, but her mother was in another room, unconscious. She covered her face with her hands and tried to get a grip, tried to control her sudden erratic breathing.

She’d never felt more alone in her whole life.

* * *

Allen stared at the news bulletin with wide eyes. The Channel 5 helicopter had captured it all. This had to be the tenth time he’d seen it and his stomach still twisted as he watched. She’d nearly been killed. He sat on the edge of his bed and glanced at the gifts he’d purchased but hadn’t yet sent; the box of chocolates and the silver bracelet. He’d definitely have to send another bouquet of flowers. She’d need the encouragement. Needed to know that he was out here and still loved her. Still cared about her. He should’ve sent the packages earlier, but he’d wanted to space out the gifts, keep her excited and maintain her anticipation. It would make their first meeting even more special.

Anger swamped him, along with guilt and shame for failing to protect her. He’d have to do way better than this in the future. Julie deserved everything and he was the one man who could give her anything she wanted.

He’d already started working on his plan to get close. He had to follow her, be in her space so their meeting seemed accidental.

Protection. She needed serious protection. He walked upstairs and straight to his father’s gun cabinet in the office. His mother never opened the fucking thing since his father had died. An arsenal of weapons sat ready for his taking. This wasn’t the first time he’d gone in here. His father had forbidden him from ever opening these doors, but dear old Dad wasn’t around anymore. Dear old Dad had put a bullet in his brain a solid seven years ago. Of course, no one knew he’d
helped
his dad on that particular day. No one had deserved it more than that son of a bitch.

Allen took out his dad’s favorite revolver and aimed it at the door. If his mother chose that moment to walk through, he would be tempted beyond measure to take her out the same way he’d taken his father out. Just his luck that she wasn’t around.

The gun felt good in his hand. Cool and powerful. Maybe the time had come to visit the shooting range. The guns didn’t do him much good if he couldn’t hit his target.

Allen closed his eyes and tried to relax. Julie was okay and he’d make sure she stayed that way. He was going to watch her like a hawk from now on, even if he had to camp out in his car to do it.

* * *

Troy had never driven faster in his life. He’d just dropped Ari off at a meeting and he’d bugged out faster than he could say
I
quit
. By the time he reached Julie’s house, the ambulance had left, but the paramedics and fire department were still in the middle of cleanup. Troy studied the burned-out wreckage of the Prius. The Mercedes next to it was totaled too. The carnage made him sick. The fact that someone wanted Julie dead made him sicker.

He made a mental note to call a fire scene investigation company he’d worked with a few years ago. He wanted all the details of this job.

Troy got back in his car after a quick chat with an officer. He arrived at Cedars in record time and went the long way into the emergency room. He spotted a barrel of a man in a security uniform, a former officer recently retired from the LAPD. Maybe retirement wasn’t all it was cracked up to be since he now worked at the hospital.

“Hey, Walsh,” Troy said, shaking the man’s hand. He’d met the officer when they were both downtown testifying in court on a particular case.

“Mills. Haven’t seen you in a while. What brings you here?”

“I need to get in the E.R.” Troy lifted an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

Walsh nodded. “Say no more.” He started moving down the long hallway. “Come with me.”

Troy slapped his back. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“You got a client in the E.R.?” Walsh asked.

How did he define Julie? She wasn’t a client. Not a girlfriend. Lover? Maybe, but for how long? At this point after one night together, someone could use the term
one
-
night
stand
and not be off the mark, but Troy detested that phrase especially where Julie was concerned. Of course she had offered him a job, so a potential client relationship wouldn’t be a lie. “Something like that,” Troy said.

Walsh canted his head. “Girlfriend?”

Troy tipped his head from side to side. Didn’t he wish. “Something like that.”

“You know...the hospital is buzzing that Julie Fraser was brought in today.” One bushy eyebrow lifted high. “That’s not who you’re here to see, is it?” Troy had become semi-well-known at the police force. Most of the guys didn’t like having outsiders nosing around in their cases, but Troy made it a point to share any information he had when it came to working with the police and had earned a solid reputation as a decent P.I. to work with.

Troy debated telling him the truth, but Walsh deserved an answer even if it evaded the question. “
Actually
...” Troy let the word speak for itself.

“No shit?” Walsh looked impressed. “I heard you’d been getting more and more famous clients. Nice work if you can get it,” he joked with a wink.

At the moment, it was shitty work, because although Troy was walking at a normal pace toward the E.R., he’d much rather be running. Julie’s panic over the phone had scared him shitless. Knowing she could have died this morning made his chest tighten. He had no business being this attached to her after only one night, but he couldn’t help himself.

Being with Julie forced him into the real world. He couldn’t be on the outside, on the fringe. Last night, he was living life to the fullest, enjoying his time and the sensory overload that Julie brought with her smile and personality. And now, he was knee-deep with worry, running a gamut of emotion he’d purposely dodged for decades. Julie was dragging him back to life one agonizing emotion at a time.

Walsh escorted him through the security at the back end of the E.R. with a wave and nod to the guard on duty. Once in the treatment room hallways, Walsh slapped a hospital visitor sticker on Troy’s chest. “You’re on your own.” He gave Troy another wicked wink. “Give your girl—or should I say client—a kiss hello.”

Troy tamped down the unfamiliar feeling of possession and waved at Walsh as he strode down the hallway in search of Julie. He didn’t need to check behind any curtains or doors, because the second he spotted the cop at the last treatment room, he knew where she was.

The young blond officer held his hand on the butt of his weapon as Troy got closer and Troy lifted his hands to show compliance.

“Julie Fraser?” he asked, trying to see into the room.

“I’m instructed to keep everyone out, so if you’d—”

“Troy!” she called. “Let him in please.”

The cop moved aside and Troy’s heart somersaulted. She sat in a hospital gown. Nicks and scratches marked her pale face and arms. Her right thigh had a bloody bandage across the front. Wrapped up in a hospital blanket, she shivered like a wet dog on a cold day.

Troy moved in, never taking his eyes off hers. She reached out and it was all he could do to keep from crushing her to him. He pulled her in gently, afraid to hurt her and unsure what her injuries entailed besides the obvious. She wrapped her arms around his waist, hugged him tight, and the emotions running through him were things he should not have been feeling after one night with this woman.

She took a deep breath and the breakdown he thought might happen a second ago disappeared.